While the special relationship between Britain and the US is currently in need of some emergency marriage guidance, there might be one thing that could salvage the bond between our once-close nations – the crisp butty.
For while Messrs Trump and Starmer have spent months squabbling over wars and trade deals, in the Best Of British pub in Clermont, Florida, one American customer is raving about one of the UK’s finest exports.
‘This great little crisp sandwich,’ she says, enraptured after tasting the pub’s delicacy. ‘Oh my God! It was so good.’
For as new Channel 4 series Escape To Florida shows, while the leaders of our two nations have been at loggerheads, the bonds between the common folk on either side of the pond remain incredibly strong.
A staggering 400,000 Brits have made their home in the Sunshine State and the show follows the fortunes of several expats who live and work there, having been lured by the weather, sandy beaches and… strollers.
‘Everybody in Miami Beach has a stroller,’ says Neasa Gallagher, who moved to the States from Ireland six years ago.
‘But there’s never a baby in it – it’s always a puppy. When I got here I thought it was ridiculous. Then my puppy had a hip problem so I got a stroller too. The other day I was at brunch with friends and we saw a dog riding a motorcycle with his owner, wearing motorcycle goggles. Nobody bats an eyelid at anything here.’
Neasa (pronounced ‘Nasa’), 39, works with her sister Sidhbh (pronounced ‘Sive’ to rhyme with ‘dive’), 45, a plastic surgeon who’s been based in the States for 18 years.
A staggering 400,000 Brits have made their home in the Sunshine State and the new Channel 4 series Escape To Florida explores the expats living in Florida
Justine and husband Raja (pictured) live in a five-bedroom, $2 million property in Orlando; Justine’s mum Denise also made the move and lives just up the road
Sidhbh, 45, pictured left, is a plastic surgeon who’s been based in the States for 18 years and works with her sister Neasa, 39, pictured right
Having trained in Ireland, Sidhbh ‘initially did general surgery – gall bladders, colons, all that. But while I was training I didn’t want to broadcast my actual plan to be a plastic surgeon because it was frowned upon by my mentors and teachers at the time.’
Indeed her mentors – and anyone else of a squeamish disposition – may want to look away when she explains that her area of expertise lies in ‘genital surgery and body contouring’.
So successful has her practice been that having sunk a seven-figure sum into a new office she finally has something she’s dreamed of – a private bathroom overlooking Miami, or as she calls it, ‘a loo with a view’.
Often patients will go in for multiple procedures at a time.
‘So maybe they’ll have the breasts and tummy done, or maybe an arm lift,’ says Sidhbh. ‘And usually it’ll all cost in the region of $20,000 [around £15,000].’
As a doctor working in America, she adds, you get paid the best in the world.
‘I could feel the opportunities for women in surgery back home weren’t great and I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, so I initially left the country for the career opportunities more than anything else.’
For 50-year-old Martin Thomas, the opposite was the case. He’d retired and moved to Florida in January 2020 with his wife Beverley, having owned a successful car dealership in Manchester which sold vehicles to the likes of former United star Cristiano Ronaldo.
Meanwhile Martin Thomas, 50, retired and moved to Florida in January 2020 with his wife Beverley
Since the move, Martin has opened up the Best Of British pub in Clermont (pictured) which offers expats a comforting taste of home
After working hard for 20 years, Martin admits he was done. ‘I was 44. I had enough money to live for the rest of my life… then Covid hit and the money just went.’
So he changed gears and opened up the Best Of British pub in Clermont – purveyors of the crisp butty – which offers expats a comforting taste of home.
‘So many places profess to being an English pub in the US just by throwing a Union Jack up or sticking a picture of Churchill on the wall, but they’re still serving chicken wings and tacos,’ he says.
‘We do English breakfasts, fish and chips, liver and onions and we import our food. We get bread from Yorkshire, Heinz baked beans, Walker’s crisps, Cadbury’s chocolate and we sell everything in our store. We’ve just sold over 3,000 Cadbury’s Easter eggs.’
Picturesque Clermont is around 15 minutes from Orlando’s Disney World, so they get hordes of British tourists as well as expats living and working in the area.
Martin says that partaking of some Scotch eggs or proper English bacon (‘American bacon just tastes like a crispy piece of cardboard’) for breakfast ‘helps take the edge off being homesick. But what with the tariffs, everything has doubled.’
A packet of Walker’s crisps will set you back $2.70 (around £2) in his pub.
Picturesque Clermont is around 15 minutes from Orlando’s Disney World, so they get hordes of British tourists as well as expats living and working in the area
Brit Denise Noles (pictured left, with her daughter Justine Assal, right) moved to Florida in 1976 and has seen things change over time
Denise Noles definitely made hay while the sun shone on the UK-US exchange rate. Originally from London, she had been travelling to Florida with her first husband Leo for their holidays when they bought a house out there in 1976.
‘It was $2.50 to the pound at that time and our house cost $17,000,’ she laughs. ‘We couldn’t believe it! I was 33 when I came here and I didn’t meet any Brits for a long time. Nobody understood a word I said. Now Brits are everywhere. There was no traffic at the time either,’ she adds, while Orlando, now the theme-park capital of the world, ‘was a little, little town’.
Denise turns 80 this year and continues to work as an estate agent, which has been her job for 30 years. But while Florida is still teeming with expats, ‘I did notice that when Covid came along, a lot of Brits came over and have since sold up,’ she says.
Her daughter, Justine Assal, adds, ‘Brits haven’t bought en masse here since Brexit, because the exchange rate hasn’t worked in their favour. It’s better now to repatriate the funds by selling the property and putting the money back into pounds.’
Justine, 54, a business consultant who has lived in Florida since she was nine, was awarded an MBE in 2015 for her services to growing trade and business between Florida and the UK.
She admits that one of the benefits of living in the Sunshine State, apart from the sunshine, ‘is that the cost of living is lower than many places. Also, a lot of other places have a state income tax whereas we do not, so it’s very business-friendly. And the pace of life is probably a bit more relaxed.’
However, as the series points out, acquiring a visa to live and work in Florida isn’t easy. In Martin’s case, it took him roughly 18 months to secure one, ‘and it either has to be job-sponsored or a business investment’ (he later reveals he sank over $250,000 [£185,000] into his pub).
Denise’s husband died in 2001 and four years ago her daughter Jacquie died after a brief battle with cancer. ‘So Justine’s everything to me now,’ says Denise.
It took a while, but Justine finally convinced her mum to move closer to her in Florida – so close, in fact, that while Justine and her husband Raja live in a five-bedroom, $2 million property in Orlando, Denise and her second husband Bert live in a ground-floor flat on the other side of their pool, with Justine and Raja’s son Christian in the flat above.
And despite their proximity, they all get along swimmingly. Previously, Denise lived in Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast. ‘We had the ocean on one side and the canal on the other and alligators would go from the canal to the water and back, so I’d see them crossing the road.’
Sidhbh, who lives in an apartment block ten floors up from her sister Neasa overlooking Miami Beach, is greeted by the more relaxing sight of ‘dolphins, manatees and the beautiful Miami skyline’, she says. ‘It’s a very bouji area, full of gay couples in their forties, where everyone works out really hard and looks awesome.’
Indeed, Miami plays host to many a beautiful celeb (‘I saw David Beckham in the Pura Vida café, Cindy Crawford in Sunset Harbour and Enrique Iglesias has his recording studio directly underneath our office,’ says Neasa).
Although she can’t reveal names, Sidhbh says, ‘I’ve had some high-profile patients. They’re actually not the best type of patient though because we can never post their before and after photos on our website, and it can be hard work planning around their schedules.’
Both Sidhbh and Neasa are glamorous blondes and happily admit to their own surgical enhancements. ‘I’ve definitely had a few body contouring things done and I fully intend not to age gracefully,’ says Sidhbh.
For her part, Neasa was lucky enough to get freebie liposuction and a thigh lift from her sister, although she admits that her friends from their quiet village of Louth in Ireland, ‘are still kind of bemused by what we do’.
So, with your homeland some 4,000 miles away, does living abroad give you the licence to be absolutely anyone you want to be?
Sidhbh lives in an apartment block ten floors up from her sister Neasa overlooking Miami Beach
‘I think in Florida you have room to be as full-on and ridiculous as you want,’ Neasa admits. ‘I’ve always been ridiculous, though by Miami standards I’m fairly modest, but it’s nice that we have the freedom to express ourselves.’
Plus there’s also the freedom to go clubbing before work. ‘It’s a whole thing,’ says Neasa. ‘People will get up at 4am, put on their work outfit and head to a nightclub like Club Space to have a coffee. You wouldn’t dream of doing something like that back home.’
Interestingly, living abroad has only heightened everyone’s love for Britain. ‘As soon as the plane flies towards Manchester and over Saddleworth Moor, it feeds my soul,’ says Martin. ‘I tell every American that their country is only the second best country in the world.’
Yet there is still the opportunity to bring a slice of signature British culture back to Florida.
At Martin’s pub they air Premier League football matches, while also having a room at the back where customers can take afternoon tea.
‘So sometimes you’ll have Liverpool versus Man United at the front of the pub, while at the back we’ll have American ladies dressed in their finery for afternoon tea. By the end of the afternoon you’ll have all these American women singing You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ he laughs. ‘It’s quite a sight.’
Escape To Florida airs Monday to Friday at 4pm on Channel 4.